


your cynicism will save us all

by soulas



Series: tumblr smols [2]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Chaotic Good, Spirit Animal AU, guys steven and shane interaction cracks me up, if i wasn't a coward i'd actually expand this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 16:13:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15777567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulas/pseuds/soulas
Summary: Steven, Shane, and Annie team up to save the world.





	your cynicism will save us all

On the night before Steven’s first birthday, his parents place him in a cradle under the sickly pale moon. Their whole family is there. His father holds onto his mother’s hand tightly. The moment Steven enters his first birthday, a shimmering light appears over him, and the ghostly image of a kitten appears. It pads around the baby, yawns widely, and settles itself around Steven. Everyone lets out a sigh of relief.   


Andrew saves Steven twice (once from a man trying to kidnap and ransom the son of the famously psychic Lim family and once from a bunch of kids beating up on him and almost cracking his head open against the ground) before he turns ten and they move to America. The States are different. 

Steven asks his parents one day why no one else has the ghostly detached shadow that everyone in his family has. And he’s even more confused when they tell him to never mention Andrew or the other spirit animals to anyone. 

-

In school, they learn about spirit animals and old eastern mystics and Steven sits up straight at this. Finally, something he’s interested in.   


The kid sitting next to him leans over and whispers, “What a load of bullshit, am I right?”

Steven flinches away. Andrew shifts from where he’s curled around Steven’s neck, and Steven can feel the cat’s hackles rising.

_How about I stick a nice pawful of claws into your leg, see how you like that, huh?_ Andrew hisses in Steven’s mind.

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Steven says quietly. The kid raises an eyebrow and turns back towards the teacher. 

After class, Steven runs up to him. “Hey, why did you say that? About the idea of spirit animals and ghosts being dumb?”   


_Steven, this is not a good idea_ , Andrew says uneasily. 

_I wanna see what he says._

The boy, taller than Steven by at least five inches, just shrugs and says, “There’s no scientific evidence that anything supernatural exists. Just some people’s overactive imagination thinking, oh no! it’s a ghost! When really it’s the wind going a little strong that day.”   


“That’s even worst science,” Steven says. “Just because you haven’t observed it doesn’t mean it exists? By that thinking, then before we had the ability to see bacteria, it failed to exist just because we couldn’t observe it then?”   


The kid scoffs. “What kind of perverted logic is that? Let me tell you…”   


They argue about this all through their next class and the next one and then through lunch, and at the end of the day, Steven leaves school with a sore throat and a triumphant smile on his face. Not because he convinced Shane, he’s pretty sure he’ll never be able to unless Andrew agrees to reveal himself to the skeptic, but because he thinks he’s made a new friend.   


-

Shane and Steven are good friends throughout middle school and most of high school, but Steven always has a sense of displacement, of not belonging. 

Shane likes to take a dig at him sometimes. “Oh, Steven, did you hear that thunder? I think it was a big bad ghosty coming to steal our carrots, oh no!”

Steven laughs awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. Andrew’s low growl radiates against his hand.  

Sometimes Steven thinks if he didn’t have Andrew’s dry voice in his head, usually threatening to possess Shane, he’d go crazy. So when Steven meets Annie, he almost cries in relief at the silvery shadow shimmering behind her.    


“Mine’s a cat,” he whispers to her one day, when they’re alone, dawdling behind the rest of the class. “His name is Andrew.”    


Annie’s eyebrows shoot so far up they almost disappear. She looks around and then opens her palm. A flicker in the air, and then a small, sleeping hamster appears, curled in her hand. “This is Adam,” she says, staring down at her spirit animal with a fond smile.   


“Oh,” Steven breathes. He’s never seen another spirit animal outside of his family. “Hi Adam.”    


With Annie, Steven has an advantage over Shane’s scornful jibes at the spiritual world, and his relationship with his own past and identity improves a little more, from uncomfortably foreign to just, different.    


“Ohh, is that a ghost I hear?” Shane says, cupping a hand behind his ear. “Should I get my two ghost hunting friends to protect me?”

“Go to hell,” Annie and Steven tell him in unison.

-

Everything comes to a head on Shane’s eighteenth birthday. If you were to ask the three of them what they were doing out in the middle of a field at midnight on the eve of his birthday, they wouldn’t have been able to give you a clear answer. It had just felt like the right place to be.    


Midnight strikes and Shane suddenly falls to his knees.    


“Hey man, you okay?” Annie calls from where she and Steven are waiting by the pond.    


Shane looks up at them and there’s a look of sheer confusion on his face, unlike anything they’ve ever seen. Something flashes and a silvery shape begins to form. When it’s finished materializing, the otter weaves itself around Shane, before contentedly settling at his feet.    


Shane looks down at it, a little dazedly. “Oh no. No. This is fucking hack.”   


The otter stares up at Shane and then says, projecting into everyone’s head,  _Shane Madej, you’ve been chosen as the one who is going to preserve the world of those unseen. The protector of the proctors. The one who will continue generations of tradition._ _  
_

Then the otter shakes its head and says in a more bitter tone,  _I’m Ryan. Yeah, something something spirit animal, something something I can’t believe they choose this asshole to save us._ _  
_

Shane blinks. “What. What the  _fuck_.”    


Steven is hunched over on himself in hysterical giggles and even Annie is laughing. “Oh this is perfect,” Steven wheezes. “This is  _karma_ , baby! All those times you made fun of us for…and now…the chosen one…” He starts laughing again.   


And thus begins the tragic tale of Shane Madej, the most reluctant chosen one, who is destined to save a bunch of spirit animals he never believed in.    


-

When he meets Andrew and Adam, he pales a little. “Uh. Sorry for you know. Vehemently denying your existence constantly to your face. Or, essence. Whatever. In my defense, this is still potentially all a fevered dream.”

Annie punches him.

-

They ask Ryan several times why Shane of all people was chosen, and he just shakes his head tiredly.  _Look, if I knew, I wouldn’t be here, ok? I would be with whoever it is that can close this void. But the universe dumped me at Ahane’s feet, so we’re just going to have to live with it._ _  
_

_-_

“Hey! why not Steven, huh?” Shane shouts at the sky one day, shaking his fist. “Steven is the perfect main character. Naive, childish…”

“Hey!” Steven says, from where he’s crouched at the mouth of hell, supposedly.

“Or even Annie!” Shane continues, ignoring him. “She’s the one who’s most likely save the world!”

“Damn straight,” Annie says from where she’s holding the ancient scrolls of the Eight Immortals and Chang’e’s herb. 

“This is so bullshit,” Shane mutters.

_Shut the fuck up_ , Ryan says, more out of habit than irritation. 

-

They save the world, but probably with a lot more cursing and complaining than your typical fantasy YA novel. And it turns out Shane saves the spiritual world by closing up a spirit-sucking hell void through the sheer will of his cynicism, still firmly intact even after countless interactions with supernatural beings.   


“You are a testament to all skeptics, Madej,” Annie says, shaking her head. 

“I still can’t believe it,” Shane mutters.

“Oh, shut  _up_ ,” Steven exclaims.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://keyolove.tumblr.com/)


End file.
